Doctor Sun not only toured western nations he was in fact an American citizen. I often play trivia games with my students and one of the questions I frequently pose is, Who is the most important American citizen born in China?

He became a big fan of Lenin and refounded the KMT on leninist lines after 12 years of a banana republic.

China had been in almost every way ahead of Europe for a really long time until the 1700s. Science, technology, economy, urbanization, industrialization, etc... no real comparison can be made.

China had become very developed in the Tang Dynasty (~600 AD), and it would take centuries before Europe can reach the Tang's standards. Can you even compare Tang China with, say, the Franks or Anglo-Saxons that existed like 200-300 years later? One had a very well developed bureaucratic system and vacation pay for civil servants, something sane modern employment contracts must have. The Middle Ages of Europe were plagued by miserable living standards.

The Song Dynasty (12th-13th Century China) comparison with the West is even more lopsided. It was an urbanized society with social clubs, forensic science, paper money, ventures, to name a few things. Keep in mind, generally the Europeans would seek China, not the other way around. One would be impressed with the other, but the feeling was not mutual.

The Ming Dynasty was also centuries ahead of Europe. It was practically a thriving capitalism with wage-labour economics and massive industries. It also had the ancient equivalent of multiple carrier fleets. Again, no real comparison between the two can be made.

European enlightenment and Chinese isolation, along with Chinese arrogance and the always-existing geographic barriers. From then on Europe easily outpaced China and beat China in every way comparable, including areas where China had been the leader of. Technologically, scientifically, economically, Europeans had far outpaced China.

Then you have China's Century of Humiliation and long lengths of misery, shame, corruption, and disasters. China and Europe have been reserved.

With this history in mind, it is most logical to say that neither is superior to each other. Who have managed to stay in the top for ever? No one.

Clearly there are certain aspects of Eastern and Western culture that are very attractive to each other. They like a little bit of what we do and we like a little bit of what they do. If you look around a typical house in the western world, there are many eastern influences at work. It's the same over there I imagine. The two worlds(maybe not the correct term) are more closely linked than we think.

As historians, we value usually all believe that all history is important. To say if Western Civilization or the Eastern is better blinds us. Both fronts gave us amazing insight to life philosophically, culturally, economically, politically, and any other "ally" you can think of. I suppose superiority is the wrong question, and the question of which one I find more interesting is an easier and more fair question to ask.

In that case I really like studying Western Civilization more, especially European history. I love studying the imperialistic groups in that part of the world for some reason a lot. Western art is also pretty awesome if I may say so. Of course, Eastern Civilization art is pretty amazing as well.

There is no such thing as a better culture, because we are the product of our respective cultures our understanding of the world is filtered through those experiences and cultural impressions ingrained in us. So we cannot be impartial enough to say if its superior. But it is also a question that cannot be answered because how do we view superior? By what facts, how do we score something like this? Longevity? China wins. Impression that the culture had made on the world as a whole, well there both chinese and "western european" are equal. Population? Well that would be roughly equal if we count whole of North America and most of europe along with australia.
Also culture changes, it mutates all the time taking in new elements, losing others and what we now understand under "western culture" is different than what was 50 years ago. In 50 years time it will be different again.
In time perhaps there will be a single "Earth" culture with variations in degrees between different regions but there will be a general consensus. I hope.

In terms of purely objective measure, Western civilization is superior to that of China in that western civilization has resulted in greater affluence and greater freedom for a greater percentage of its members. It has netted for members of western civilization a larger share of the world's resources, and a larger, per capita, political influence over more resources, and more other cultures.

And that is unlikely to change in the future, because cultures all over the planet, in particular China, are prospering and growing in power, affluence and influence in direct proportion to how fully they adopt western cultural memes.

So while China may well overtake the US or the West in terms of global economics and influence.... the China that does so will look a lot more like the West than traditional Chinese culture.

English is the language of science and the language of commerce and even the language of international diplomacy. Travel to India, or China, and you will find that business is conducted by men in western suits, trading stock in western style exchanges, and managing companies in increasingly western fashion.

This is not to impugn the great philosophical and technical strides that China was the origin of... but China downfall was is long tradition of cultural xenophobia... whereas one of the Wests strongest traditions is in being able to "borrow" from China, or India those memes that have merit, and incorporate them into western culture.

That people take Tai Chi classes in Santa Monica is not evidence of the success of Chinese culture... Tai Chi, as an idea, is hundreds of years in China's past.

But that US corporations are having US products made in China, and that these corporations can make demands concerning steady improvement of working conditions, changes in factory management and more... this shows you that Western culture is changing China far more than China will change the west.

Just like any other evolutionary struggle... The cultures that survive and spread are the ones that best fit the needs of those who practice that culture.

Modern western culture is superior to western culture of just a few hundred years ago.

And it is the culture that other nations seek to emulate and copy.

Well said. When I ever see these threads on biggest, best civilisation, I think to myself well the modern world is increasingly western in the way it operates - I believe in a 100 years you could say that in reality the Chinese, Indian et al civilisations have finished, sure they will have unique cultural factors, but the countries will be western in most respects, albeit a western civilisation that changes over time, with some input from these countries